I have been loving writing short stories. So I am sharing one here. It's supposed to be funny. Let me know what you think.

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I was sitting on my favourite chair, eating from my bag of peanuts that I always set next to my worktable. My wife told me that one of the reasons I was so fat, was because I ate so many peanuts every single day.

“You would be skinny if you didn’t eat a bag of peanuts every single day!” She yelled at me every single day.

But peanuts are vegan, I would say quietly in my head, too afraid of my wife to yell back at her.

I shoveled a handful of peanuts into my mouth as I felt my stomach rolls pressing painfully against the elastic waistband of my work-at-home pants. Since, I am always working at home, being a writer, I didn’t really have any other pants in my wardrobe. I moved around the waistband up or down a bit, so that it didn’t press against my belly so much and I settled in, cracking my knuckles, getting ready to write.

“What will I write about today,” I asked my muse, who was sitting on my bed, play fighting with his girlfriend, who came with him everywhere.

“Damnit, will you stop playing with your girlfriend for a second, and help me with my writing. For God’s sake, who brings their girlfriend to work and then gets frisky with them? Eeesh.” I had to get irritated and yell at my muse or he never listened.

He looked irritated at me, and then moved off the bed, patting his girlfriend on her lush bottom, and as if she were a wave, she disappeared from our view. She was probably somewhere around, but she wasn’t visible in my visual wavelength. My muse, Gordon, as I called him, because I had always wanted to be named Gordon.

I would beg and beg my mother to change my name. “But why can’t you call me Gordon, instead of Blinky? Gordon is such a manly name, Blinky’s so stupid. I sound like a pod of beans, rather than a man.”

She utterly refused. “Well that’s because you are not a man. You are just a 10 year-old boy.”

“That’s not the point, is it?” She never got the point in my conversations. Feeling misunderstood, I would kick the cat on my way out, and get a certain satisfaction from hearing her mewl complainingly to my mother.

Anyways, I saw Gordon with his six-pack and broad shoulders, walk over gracefully to my desk and lean against the desk, looking pityingly at me and my belly fat.

I sucked in my belly a bit, to no real effect. I gave up after a few seconds, as I was suffocating, and saw with horror that in the last few seconds, my belly had definitely grown a size or two. In order to quell the panic of hearing my wife yell at me, I looked around for something to soothe me. The only thing I could think of was a shovelling some more peanuts into my mouth. As soon as they were in my mouth, and I felt the salty crunchy feeling emanate from them, I felt calmer.

“So what are we writing today, Gordon? And how many times, do I have to tell you not to bring your girlfriend to work. For God’s sake, this is serious business, writing, and we can’t be playing around like that.”

Gordon looked at me in that manner, macho men do. Strong and silent was what I had asked for when I ordered my muse from the heavens. But instead I got Gordon.

“Bloody hell. You are just jealous, aren’t you? I mean, when was the last time you got laid? I have told you, your wife is definitely cheating on you. I saw her getting quite cozy with the neighbour a few days ago. And when I mean cozy, I mean, real cozy. So cozy as to…”

I shook my head to get rid of the image of my wife getting cozy with the neighbour he was probably talking about. He was a gardener and a runner. God, I hate runners, with their supercilious attitude about fitness. “Oh, look at me, I can run, and I like it.”

I didn’t have time to think about my wife cheating right now. I had to get some writing done. Some soothing peanuts in my mouth, and I got back my nerve to yell at Gordon.

“No, I don’t care about my wife, or how fat I am getting right now. I need to get some writing done. What are we writing about today, I ask you for the third time?” Gordon looked unperturbed. He ran a finger across my desk, and typewriter, and came up with a thick layer of dust on his fingers.

“When was the last time your wife cleaned up or dusted in here? It is an absolute mess. I am telling you to stop focusing so much on your writing, and look outside that damn window once in a while at the world that is passing you by. Every day, the sun comes up and the sun goes down. But all you care about is writing. You aren’t going to get anywhere in life, if you spend all of your life writing, you know? How about skipping today’s writing, and going and spending some time with your wife? Huh? It’ll do you some good, also to go for a little walk,” Gordon said, poking at my belly with his right index finger.

I put my head in my hands, and lamented to the Gods, for picking Gordon as a muse. I had wanted someone who was unlike me, so I picked someone who was fit, and obviously attractive to the ladies physically. But I ended up getting a muse who doesn’t want to do any work at all. “God, please send me another muse, one who actually wants to do some work when he’s on Earth, instead of wanting to skip work every single day.”

I looked at him with my sternest face, and said, “You say this every single day! Every single day, you want to skip work, and go off to dilly-dally with your girlfriend. Why the hell did you bring her with you to your workplace anyways? I don’t get it. No more delays,” I said, slamming my hand down on my desk, which caused a huge spider to be disturbed in his rest and come flying out at my face, and a bunch of dust to be dislodged that caused me to start coughing.

My mouth which was open due to the coughing, was in direct line for the spider’s trajectory. The result being I swallowed a spider.

I would have cried in my wife’s arms, but she was angry with me at the moment, as I had tried to get frisky with her in the bedroom last night and when she had asked me to do a ‘sexy’ dance for her, I had declined, and fallen asleep promptly.

I swallowed my tears and the spider, whose legs I could feel crawling down my esophagus.

Horrors.

Gordon looked at me with sympathy and said, “Are you alright, mate? You just swallowed a pretty substantial looking spider. I don’t think he was poisonous, though.”

I shook my head, and to get the taste of spider out of my mouth, I shovelled some more peanuts down my mouth and throat. The taste of salt and the crunch of peanuts bought some much-needed happiness into my life.

“I guess, we can call it a day since we’ve already done so much. Also, you just swallowed a spider. You couldn’t possibly work after that. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good job today!” He put his hand out for a high-five, and I let him just stand there looking foolish.

“No, we are not calling it a half-day. I haven’t written a single word yet. Not even a single word. I swear to you, Gordon, I’m sending you back with a 1 star review to the heavens, if you don’t buckle down and start helping me with some of my writing asap. I’m serious, now.”

Gordon looked at me, trying to gauge how serious I was. And I tried to muster my most serious face. He looked convinced after a few seconds, because he spit away from me, and said, “How about we write about quantum physics wavelengths? I have been watching this video on Holographic universes, and it’s absolutely fascinating. Perhaps, Joey, your character, could do some time-travel and figure out that the Earth is just a hologram, and nothing on it is real. What do you think? I think that would be a best-seller. A hit, I tells ya. An absolute hit.”

Gordon seemed pretty pleased with himself.

“This was exactly the same idea you came up with yesterday. And the day before. In fact, it’s been the same idea for the past seven days. You need some new material.”

Instead of looking ashamed, Gordon looked angry at me. “It’s because you’ve been overworking me. Just because I am not part of the muse’s union, doesn’t mean you can just treat me like crap. I have needs, too. I need time off, and I need love. I am just a poor muse, trying to do the best he can, but.. this world.” Gordon managed to pull a few tears into his eyes to make his performance even stronger, so much so that Blinky forgot about his IBS, and stared at Gordon with pity.

Gordon at that point peeking out at Blinky saw that he was wavering, and decided a full frontal assault was in need. He burst into complete tears, sobbing, crying, wailing. The whole shebang.

Looking around him in panic, Blinky wondered what he did to deserve such an overdramatic muse.

With that Gordon slid out of the room, one minute here, and another minute not.

Blinky scratched at a itchy patch of skin on his elbow, and decided he would have to do his writing for today without his muse. Without Gordon around, he finished his article in a few hours, and called it a day.

Looking down at the bag of peanuts, he realized he had finished eating a kilogram of peanuts today. Oh shit, his wife was going to kill him.